Of Gold & Blood Series 2 Books 1 & 4

by Jenny Wheeler

  He smiled, as if taking Weavers into his confidence. “Course I’d need to know who the other shareholder is going to be. Can’t go into business with an invisible man. But actually, just between you and me, I prefer having just the controlling interest. Means I can have the run of it without having to pay up the full hundred percent for it, doesn’t it?”

  Nathan faked looking pleased with himself and was amused to see Weavers turn red-faced. Beads of nervous sweat broke out on his forehead. “No you can’t buy any part of the Ruby Mine. It’s already sold. Do I make myself clear?” Spittle sprayed onto the table. Weavers stood up and pushed his stool back so violently it crashed to the floor behind him.

  Nathan acted amazed. “Mr. Weavers, I don’t understand. What man would turn down a competitive offer on mine shares? What’s going on? And I wonder what Mrs. Guilliame will think about it.”

  Weavers was striding for the door. He stopped dead in his tracks and swung around. “Mrs. Guilliame? What do you mean Mrs. Guilliame? I told you she can’t be upset, she’s in mourning. And she’s quite happy with the arrangements.”

  Nathan assumed a man of the world stance and spread his arms wide. “She might be quite happy because you haven’t told her the full story. I bet she won’t be quite so happy when she hears you are refusing to accept a better offer. The question I’m asking myself is why?”

  Eighteen

  Graysie was silent as Nathan drove her wagon back up the winding mountain road to Gold House, Minette perched on the front bench seat between them. Vulcan rode shot gun in the back, scampering from one side to other with his tongue lolling out as they ascended the crest of the ridge, his claws clicking and sliding on the floorboards as they climbed.

  She smiled to herself. The dog brought a bright spot to their days, making them all laugh with his mischief. The day before he’d narrowly failed to steal a leg of ham when the cook’s back was turned. He adored Nathan, and he’d extended his affection to Minette as well, playing happily with her and her new little friend Seraphine in Lisette’s garden that afternoon, under the watchful eye of the housekeeper.

  They’d returned to the Guilliame home because the little girls got on so well together and it was a real treat for both of them to have a playmate, but Nathan had also wanted to check on Lisette’s safety.

  The afternoon sun cast golden stripey shadows across the narrowing gravel path up to the house. It was a lovely, warm settled afternoon, but after talking with Lisette, Graysie felt on edge. Lisette’s description of Weavers’s bullying, of how he’d swaggered about, a different man from when he was her husband’s manager, left Graysie uneasy. Who was pulling his strings, she wondered.

  What did it say in Proverbs? ‘Under three things the earth trembles, under four it cannot bear up; a servant who becomes king, an overbearing fool who prospers…’ Funny the things you remember.

  Even in a basic workman’s jacket and pants Nathan was easy on the eye. For a moment she allowed herself to contemplate his strong profile, his capable hands relaxed around the reins as he guided the mare up the little-used road.

  Most of the vehicles that came this way were headed for Sir John Russell’s estate, so there was little other traffic to be concerned about. Nathan appeared his usual calm self, his face giving no sign of disquiet, but Graysie guessed he was good at hiding his anxiety. She’d sensed his indignation when he’d related to Lisette the conversation he’d had with Weavers.

  Graysie was grateful he hadn’t returned to a discussion of her plans since their disagreement a few nights prior. When he didn’t try and tell her what to do, she felt an allure like nothing she’d ever experienced. He had an irresistible decency and an impish grin that refused to take himself—or anyone else—too seriously. And she was touched by how much attention he had paid to Lisette’s situation. After his talk with John the two men had insisted on organising a minder to protect Lisette and Seraphine from further harassment.

  They had just rounded a gentle bend half a mile from home when she was jolted forward so violently she almost slid off her seat. The gentle mare up front reared, shrieking in a high pitched squeal that set Graysie’s nerves jangling. The horse tumbled forward, collapsing onto her knees. The wagon’s forward momentum continued, the front board barrelling into the mare’s hind quarters, causing her to cry again in terror and struggle to get up.

  On instinct, Graysie braced Minette with her right arm to stop her from sliding off the seat while grasping the buggy side with her left to stop them both from pitching out onto the road. They slid to a stop, the horse still thrashing under them. She could see the mare’s right leg was red and bleeding, with a wound that had bared the bone right down the shin.

  Nathan jumped down and ran forward, grabbing the horse by the halter and stroking her neck to calm her. Coiled wire glinted in the dust. Nathan reached for the gun at his belt as a man’s voice cut through the cloudy air.

  “Hands up. Now.”

  A bulky, broad-shouldered man with a scarf tied across the lower half of his face stepped onto the road from the forested margin, holding a shotgun determinedly out in front of him.

  Nathan turned to her, his eyes raking her face. “Run. Now.” His words came in a low rush, but she couldn’t move. She was stuck, draped against the back of the seat in a tipsy-looking sprawl, Minette whimpering beside her.

  The scarf-clad man thrust the barrel hard into Nathan’s back.

  “I said get them up,” he yelled.

  As Graysie half lay, dumb and petrified, a second man emerged from the shadows and, in a couple of strides, was at her side. Dirty blonde hair hung over feral features in greasy hanks. The unwholesome rank of bad meat and stale body odor hit the back of her throat as he grabbed her arm and twisted it up behind her back. The thought that Vulcan might launch himself from the wagon galvanised her. “Go home, Vulcan. Go home.” She was screaming.

  Her foul-smelling attacker pulled her close. As he lent to hiss into her ear, she caught the whiff of wild pig and whiskey.

  “Behave yerself and yer won’t get hurt.”

  He prodded her with a revolver while snatching at Minette with his other hand.

  “Yer coming with me,” he snarled, and dragged the girl wailing behind them.

  Graysie was craning to see what was happening to Nathan, but her captor propelled her roughly away into the forest on the opposite side of the road. She stumbled over tree roots as they made their precarious way down the side of a steep gully.

  Halfway down, the bandit let go of Minette, grabbed Graysie by the throat and pushed her hard against a tree trunk. His body pressed into her. With a nasty laugh, he hauled a coil of rope from his belt. Within seconds he had looped it around her and the tree and lashed her there. A few seconds more, and he’d bound her wrists together in front of her so tightly they hurt.

  “Try anything funny and the kid gets hurt… And then you do too.” He leered at her, and his mouth, with its few remaining nicotine-stained teeth, yawned.

  “I wouldn’t mind that,” he jeered. “Now we’ve just got to silence that pretty little mouth.” He whipped a gag out of his fringed pocket and tied it around Graysie’s mouth so tightly she was suffocating.

  “I’ll be back—that is if the bears and wolves don’t find you first.”

  He grabbed Minette and tied her hands and feet, but he didn’t gag her; instead he allowed her to drop to the ground at Graysie’s feet. Then he left as abruptly as he’d appeared.

  In the silence that followed she thought she heard muffled curses. They were taking Nathan somewhere, she supposed. Then all was silent, pregnantly so, as if the forest was holding its breath, awaiting the next catastrophe. The lengthening shadows loomed across the track, warning her not to cross them.

  It was hard to breathe with the gag on, and she fought for air so she wouldn’t faint. She wanted to stay alert to protect Minette, even though she knew she was helpless to do anything in the state she was in.

  She was about to lose the
battle and drop off into a light-headed swoon when she heard a noisy rustling in the trees on the ridge above. Not a bear, she prayed. Or wolves. Please God. She peered into the dusk in terror. Then, bounding towards her, she saw Vulcan’s joyous white and brown head, tongue lolling, jaws drooling. Normally she would baulk at a slobbering dog. Right now it was one of the sweetest sights on earth.

  Minette sat up with a start and cried softly, “Vulcan! You came back!”

  Graysie gave a great gulp of relief through her gag as Vulcan stopped in delight and then, head raised, bounded over to Minette and danced around her, going down on his front legs before her as if inviting her to play. Minette laughed in delight. Vulcan seemed to sense she could not pat him in the usual way. He rolled herself close into Minette’s side and snuggled there, paws out in front, happily panting.

  For no good reason, she felt a surge of hope.

  They would get through this. They would not just sit waiting for some wild animal to find them or for their attackers to return. She started to hum one of Minette’s favorite nursery songs, “Frere Jacques. Frere Jacques. Dormez vous? Are you sleeping, are you sleeping, Brother John? Brother John?”

  How many times had she quietly sung this lullaby to the child as she was falling asleep? Long before she’d become her guardian, Graysie had helped Francine when she’d had to work and needed a babysitter. Now the song took on a new purpose.

  She hummed the well-known tune. Minette picked up her challenge and began singing the words in her pretty little girl voice: “Sonnez les matines… Sonnez les matines… Ring the morning bells! Ring the morning bells! Ding, dang, dong. Ding, dang, dong.”

  She thanked God that Minette had not been gagged. As she bent down to nuzzle the top of the little girl’s head with her gagged face, the last rays of sunlight through the trees lit on a jagged edge of rock lying beside Minette’s feet.

  She strained against the rope around her middle, working her body from side to side until it slacked off enough for her to slide down the tree bole, within grasping distance.

  Leaning forward, Graysie picked it up with her still-bound hands and gestured for Minette to get into a position where she could work on the ropes that bound the child’s feet. The child perched on top of some fallen logs to get within Graysie’s reach.

  Graysie had to move with care to avoid scratching her delicate skin, and by the time she had the cords severed, the temperature in the forest had dropped with the sun, and Minette was shivering. But all the way through the exhausting exercise Graysie hummed nursery tunes and Minette took up her lead and sang along quietly.

  At last, Minette’s legs and hands were freed, and the child went to work feverishly pulling at the knotted rope that bound Graysie to the tree. Her fingers were tiny but nimble, and before long she had freed first the ropes and then the gag.

  With her hands and feet still tied, Graysie clumsily hugged Minette to her and ran her mouth over her hairline, dotting little kisses at the point where her dark curls crowded over her perfect, plump little face. How precious this child was to her! And what a lot she had already suffered!

  Graysie laughed and whispered to her, “We are going to be fine, my darling, you know that, don’t you? We are going to be fine.” And kissed her again. Then she held her hands out in front of her and said, “Get that rock I used to cut your ropes, and I’ll go to work here.”

  Minette eagerly retrieved the stone. Graysie placed it at an angle jammed in a crevice so its most jagged edge was upright and facing out of the boulder. She began sawing her wrist bands against it and, within a short time, felt the rope fray and give way.

  With her hands free, she cut the ties around her ankles. She stood and exulted in the pins and needles sensation as blood rushed through her cramped muscles. Then, with Minette in her arms and Vulcan loping alongside, she started back to the wagon. It took only minutes and they were there. Concealed in the trees, with her hand firmly on the dog’s neck to stop him darting out and revealing their position, she watched.

  The horse, barely alive but still panicked, lay hitched in the wagon shafts, her big brown eyes rolling in distress. Graysie waited, searching the dark spaces between the trees opposite for any sign of her attackers but saw nothing.

  Finally, satisfied she was alone, she stepped out into the road. As she worked to release the trapped horse from the wagon shafts, her eye caught Vulcan, dancing back and forth in his familiar come and play invitation. Between each little bob he was tugging at Minette’s skirt, nudging her down the track where Nathan had probably disappeared.

  She ran over to restrain him and saw beneath her feet a trail of blood drops. The dog was working a regular pattern—putting his nose to the ground to sniff and then dancing and tugging at Minette’s skirt.

  I’ll be darned if the animal isn’t telling us where Nathan is. He knows where he is, and he wants to take us to him.

  Darting back to the wagon, she retrieved the bag with her pearl-handled revolver. She settled Minette onto the wagon floor with the quilt and the music box she always carried for emergencies. “You stay here, darling, safe and sound. Vulcan is going to show me where Mr. Nathan is, and he’ll come back to take us home.”

  She thought of the times when she was only a little older than Minette, and her father had comforted her when she was frightened. One memory shone in the darkness, the day when their wagon had been swept away in a river crossing late one afternoon and they’d barely escaped with their lives.

  “Time for one quick bedtime story,” she said. “My papa always said that at times like these we need to look for the dove whose wings are sheathed in silver and its feathers in shining gold.” Minette smiled. “That’s right. A dove with silver wings and gold feathers. Keep your eyes open. She’ll be around here somewhere.”

  “Really?” said Minette, a surge of interest in her high-pitched little voice. “Somewhere near?”

  “Yes, my darling girl. Even when we are sleeping around the campfire, lost in faraway dreams, God is up and fighting our battles for us. He’s already preparing the victory for the morning. That’s what it says in Psalm 68.”

  Minette peered up at her with a hopeful smile. Graysie could see her eyes were heavy. She sat with her, stroking her head gently, whispering about the silver-winged dove which was God’s sign of protection, until she fell asleep.

  She had no idea if Nathan was still alive, but she owed it to him to try and find out. She gave Minette one last loving pat and tiptoed off down the forest trail following Vulcan’s waving tail.

  Nineteen

  Children’s excited lilting voices… He struggled to open his eyes and see who was calling to him. Through a mist he saw them, a long way away in a sunlit clearing, a little girl and a smaller, much younger child, a boy, hand in hand, tripping close to the banks of a rippling stream. No… Don’t go too close. It’s dangerous!

  He stretched out his arm to reach them, but they were too far away. He couldn’t save them. He struggled to rise, but his legs were unresponsive logs. A corrosive, strangling cry came from deep in his throat; he was gasping… He could taste blood.

  His eyes opened in a rush. He could hear the stream of his imaginings. It was real, and bubbling close by, but the children—he knew in his bones they were Minette and his son, Joshua—were gone.

  Sharp pain stabbed his side. Craning his head, he saw where his shirt hung off his body, red and shredded. One side of his face throbbed, his eye swollen shut. He struggled to rise, and that’s when he remembered. His feet and hands were splayed out at diagonal angles, stretched uncomfortably tight and tied to stakes driven into the valley dirt. He collapsed back, staring into a canopy of branches.

  Octavius Weavers had been straightforward about Nathan’s intended fate, and business-like in its delivery. A beating to incapacitate him, and then to be left out for the predators—bears or wolves—to find and feed on. What was left wouldn’t be recognizable.

  “So no one comes looking for your killer, see,” h
e’d sneered. “Boss wouldn’t be happy if they came looking.”

  Nathan had no idea how long he’d been unconscious, but the blood on his face was hard and congealed. From that and the slant of the daylight through the forest canopy, he guessed he’d been pegged there for a couple of hours.

  He sagged into the soft dirt, recalling the hijack, the rough way the men had handled Graysie and Minette. Where were they and how were they faring? He gritted his teeth as he silently berated himself for failing to keep them safe. That dream or vision or whatever he’d just had of the children, please God don’t let that mean she’s dead too.

  He felt a sharp enduring sting on his abdomen. It lingered, like a painful note, so piercing, he suppressed a cry. Ants. Black carnivorous ants. He’d seen the bastards in the wild, swarming over fresh meat. The predator vanguard had arrived. He squeezed his eyes tightly shut and tried to think of something pleasant.

  Graysie Castellanos rose in his mind. What a waste. Would he ever see her again? Seductive, indomitable Graysie. He felt himself fading into insensibility. He fought to stay conscious, but the mist was back, the children had returned. He took Graysie’s arm, and with the children dancing alongside them, they began a slow walk towards sunlight, the pain flooded out by an overwhelming sense of warmth and rightness…

  He jerked awake, instantly fully conscious of dim light and something wet, licking his face. A tongue, a wet sloppy tongue. His heart stopped and he screamed a short sharp cry of alarm. He forced his good eye open and saw Vulcan, a delighted slobbering incarnation, elated to have found him.

  He began to laugh, and he couldn’t stop. His circumstance was still dire, but his relief at not looking into a brown bear’s pointed snout was so great it needed release. Every time his laughter died down, it bubbled up again. He was laughing for no particular reason, he decided, except that he was still alive and he could.

  *****

  Graysie peered through the dim late afternoon light, searching for the flag-waving tail she’d followed deep into the valley. If she lost sight of the hound, as sometimes happened on a tight corner, the dog doubled back to ensure she was still there, but this time Vulcan had been gone for longer than usual.